Tech research firm IDC reported that worldwide integrated infrastructure and platforms accounted for a massive "653.8 petabytes of new storage capacity shipments" in the first quarter of 2014 alone. That represents 72.3 percent growth over the same period last year.

The broad category of integrated platforms and infrastructure includes only systems that are pre-integrated and vendor-certified and that include at least all of the following: "server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment and basic element/systems management software."

Total revenues for both integrated infrastructure and integrated platforms hit $1.95 billion during the quarter, up 38.5 percent from last year. Integrated platforms accounted for $769.6 million, up 8.3 percent from last year, while integrated infrastructure accounted for $1.2 billion, up 69.4 percent from Q1 2013.

IDC distinguishes between the two as follows: "Integrated platforms are integrated systems that are sold with additional pre-integrated packaged software and customized system engineering optimized to enable such functions as application development software, databases, testing, and integration tools. Integrated Infrastructure systems are designed for general purpose, distributed workloads that are likely to have differing performance profiles. While integrated infrastructure is similar to integrated platforms in that it will leverage the same infrastructure building blocks, it is not optimized for a specific workload."

"As the market moves to the 3rd Platform, IT customers are seeking to leverage cloud, social, mobile and big data in their [organizations]. Transforming an IT environment requires a new approach to systems," said Jed Scaramella, IDC research director, enterprise servers, in a prepared statement. "Many customers see the convergence of server, storage and networking in integrated systems as a means to deliver IT efficiency and agility. IDC expects to see more workload-optimized systems come to market in the near term."

"Once again we witnessed an increasing number of organizations around the world leveraging integrated systems to address longstanding datacenter infrastructure inefficiencies," said Eric Sheppard, research director, storage, also in a prepared statement. "As such, this market remains one of the fastest growing segments of the overall infrastructure market."

Leading integrated platform vendors in the first quarter of 2014 included:

Oracle, with $369 million in revenue (up 24.3 percent) and a market share of 48 percent (up 6.2 percentage points);

IBM, with $74.3 million in revenue (down 21.2 percent) and a market share of 9.7 percent (down 3.6 percentage points); and

HP, with $15.5 million in revenue (up 71 percent) and a market share of 2 percent (up 0.7 percentage points).

The top integrated infrastructure vendors included:

Cisco/NetApp, with $268.4 million in revenue (up 49.8 percent) and a market share of 22.7 percent (down 3 percentage points);

VCE, with $254.3 million in revenue (up 43.8 percent) and a market share of 21.5 percent (down 3.9 percentage points); and

EMC, with $179.9 million in revenue (up 100.2 percent) and a market share of 15.2 percent (up 2.3 percentage points).

David Nagel is editorial director, education for 1105 Media's Public Sector Media Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal. A 22-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art and business publications.